ODO: 346,605
Today is all about the relax. Frustration and disappointment are great at sapping your energy. Lots of short walks around the lake and napping happen. We get lots of pictures of the ducks and capybaras lounging in the grass. A nice German overlander spots us from the road and stops to chat. He invites us to his campsite for coffee. A less nice local comes over once the German leaves, and makes KoKo feel uncomfortable with his aggressive, and fast Spanish, while getting too close to the camper. Once he sees Berne, he’s quick to leave. The security guard at the park also takes care of the capybaras. He shows us how to feed and pet them, so we pet them! Once again, the park starts to fill with families and people exercising as the sun starts to set. After we have cozied in for the night, we hear loud animal screaming. A small pack of dogs is in the park chasing, and generally menacing the capybaras. The night guard runs over and chases the dogs out.
Wake up, morning walk, chores, pack. As we get in the cab of the truck, a small car screams into the spot next to us. The driver saw us from the road yesterday, owns his own auto shop, and needed to come talk to us. Berne hops out and gives them the tour and some stickers. Iguazu falls has an Argentinian side and a Brazilian side. Today we head for the Brazilian side. There is a very conveniently located hostel/campground where we set up. Right next door is the field the helicopter tours leave from. Every hour from 9am-5pm. Next door to that is the entrance to the falls. Tiny, biting bugs are out in force this evening, so we hide inside while we make plans for tomorrow.
The Brazil side of Iguazu falls starts with a double decker bus ride instead of a train. We get lucky and end up in the front of the upper level! The ride in takes us down a nicely paved road. A bike path dips in and out of the trees along our way. Once we reach the falls, its camera time! We set up for waterfall mode, and quickly learn we need to adjust to wildlife mode. There are so many monkeys!! The waterfall from this side is less impressive than the Argentinian side, so having monkeys to chase through the trees is a very nice surprise. There are also so many people. After playing National Geographic for a couple of hours, we make it to the finale, the base of the waterfall itself. Well, the base of one of the many waterfalls. Here, a walkway takes us out over the river so we can stand in the spray. Soaking wet, and loaded down with monkey pictures, we hop the bus back to the entrance. Our afternoon is spent looking at photos and laughing about how hard monkeys are to photograph. Still very buggy, we use the hostel’s indoor kitchen to cook dinner.
The other attraction across the street from our hostel/campground is a bird sanctuary. They claim to have a harpy eagle, so KoKo is very excited. They are native to the Pantanal area, but generally very, very difficult to spot. We discover zoos like this are a great place to practice bird photography. There are large aviaries to walk through, letting the birds fly around. We watch a toucan try to bite a tourist that it had lured close to it. We are dive bombed by macaws in the macaw enclosure, good times. They also have lots of owls, and a butterfly enclosure.
A quick shower and pack later, has us on our way to the border. Crossing out of Brazil takes a very long time because the aduana person was MIA. Several of their co-workers came by looking for them before the boss come by, very frustrated. The boss took our paperwork and had us stamped out in less than five minutes. Crossing back into Paraguay was easy peasy. First order of business: An electronics store for a new starlink. Traffic is fierce because of the border, and the store is closing in fifteen minutes. KoKo gets out and runs up the street to get in before they close their doors. Luckily they have what we need, and we leave town with a new starlink. Berne finds a campground on a lake, so off we go. The owner is a nice German man (there are a lot of Germans in Paraguay), and we arrive for a beautiful sunset.
We take it slow this morning. Our destination is the campground with the horses in Asuncion, so we can kick off repairs on Monday morning. Because we’re driving right by it, we stop in for a fancy buffet dinner. The campground dog remembers us, and is VERY excited to see us. Or for us to feed her treats.
Thunder rumbles all morning. First order of business, buy a cord for the starlink that plugs into the truck. Once that’s finished, we head to the mechanic. They tell us that the gear guy cant see us today, but they will help us set up our starlink. The price is much cheaper down here, so you need to “prove” you’re a local resident to keep that price. This saves us quite a bit, so we’re excited. The weather alternates between hot and pouring rain. Back to the campground.
KoKo gets violently ill in the middle of the night. We do not make it to the mechanic early. And we miss the gear guy again…The truck comes apart, and everything looks good, like its what Berne predicted, a bearing issue. Once again, they tell us to come back in the morning, and with the truck in pieces we head to a hotel for the night.
